


Better be alert if ever you and I collide

by Chaosandgunpowder



Series: Carved in gold and ice (Jamilton mob!verse) [3]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alex is a manic lawyer, Alex is pissed off and on a power trip, Alternate Universe - Mob, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Handcuffs, I mean really, M/M, Mentions of Violence, Modern Era, They’re both twisted little bastards, Thomas is a mob boss, Thomas is just down for whatever, if the term power bottom was in the dictionary there would just be a picture of Alexander Hamilton
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:29:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosandgunpowder/pseuds/Chaosandgunpowder
Summary: Alex is very good at generally not giving a fuck. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Alex gives zero fucks about pretty much everything. He hates that this, of all the pointless, stupid things to waste his energy on, is not one of those times, but he can’t seem to stop it grating his insides like sandpaper.~[One-shot accompaniment set duringwe don't need a globe to show you the world is oursft. mob-boss-Thomas and manic-lawyer Alex] - in which Alex has a full on temper tantrum meltdown over Charles fucking Lee, of all people.~
Relationships: Alexander Hamilton/Thomas Jefferson
Series: Carved in gold and ice (Jamilton mob!verse) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930312
Comments: 17
Kudos: 148





	Better be alert if ever you and I collide

**Author's Note:**

> Not gonna lie, Alex either has all the chill or zero fucking chill. He just works in extremes like that.
> 
> [This ditty will make more sense if you have read _We don’t need a globe_ , though James is obviously unaware of how much of a fucking fit Alex is pitching behind the scenes.]
> 
> (This is what happens when you start out wanting to write pissed-off-power-bottom-Alex smut and then get caught up in his messy brain and just can’t stop.)

Alex is pissed. 

Alex is _really_ fucking pissed, and sitting stewing on it for hours, on the sight of that dumb fuck pitching himself that close to Thomas _with his fucking legs splayed open for Christ sake_ , is not helping him in the slightest. He bangs around Thomas’s bedroom like a whirlwind, slamming doors and drawers and kicking furniture like that will make it better, like _that_ will stop him from wanting to hack Charles Lee’s fucking cock off with a rusty kitchen knife but of course it doesn’t. It doesn’t help him shape his temper into something helpful, because Alex can’t _do_ that cool, calm, collected fury that Thomas can, can’t harness it in that way, no matter how he tries. Alex is much slower to truly anger - _god,_ Thomas can flip that switch on a dime if he’s in the right mood - but when he does it explodes out in uncontrollable bursts and right now he’s so angry he could scream. 

He _does_ scream. He buries his face in Thomas’s pillow and helplessly shrieks his rage into the feathers, claws at the comforter and kicks viciously with all his energy like a toddler having a tantrum and it doesn’t help one bit. He wants to-

He could- 

He _could_ go downstairs and follow through on his threat, straight up castrate the little bastard trying to inch his way into Thomas’s personal space like he has _any_ right to it. He absolutely could. Thomas would let him. Thomas doesn’t give a fuck, would probably rather eat his own shit than touch that kid, whatever he and his father think. Thomas is _Alex’s_. He knows this. 

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t burn his blood that the Lees even _think_ they can try and slide what’s Alex’s right out from under him.

It burns more that, grossly mistaken or not, Charles _genuinely_ thinks there’s a possibility he might end this little charade sat atop Thomas’s dick, if he only keeps pushing. 

It burns _most_ that Thomas is letting him continue to think that. 

Thomas thinks it’s _funny_. 

Alex is quite fucking clear with everyone who even looks at him twice that he’s no one’s but Thomas’s. 

Alex doesn’t think it’s funny at all.

 _Fuck this_ , Alex thinks vehemently. He needs to get away from this goddamn house for a while - if he stays around here he’s going to claw Charles’s eyes out - and he needs to do it while he’s still at the point of semi-rational as to why that’s probably a bad idea. He needs copious amounts of alcohol, get high enough to forget his own fucking name, to not have this rubbed in his face-

He’s roughly pulling his hair up into a messy bun that hopefully looks more _just-fucked_ than _needs-washing_ when Thomas comes in, moving relaxed and easy, Sunday chill flowing through his long limbs in a way that tenses Alex up even more for how coiled tight he himself is in comparison. 

“Dinner’s nearly up,” Thomas drawls, and then pauses, presumably when he sees Alex, “Did you wa- what the fuck?”

“No thanks.” Alex tries to breeze, doesn’t turn to look at him. “I’m going out with Laf.”

“Not dressed like that, you’re not.” Thomas says flatly. Alex bristles even as the petty satisfaction settles over him. He’d felt vindictively, pettily better the second he’d slid on his tightest jeans and thinnest T-shirt when he’d found them at the bottom of one of Thomas’s drawers. He raises an imperious eyebrow at Thomas in the mirror. 

“ _Wow_. I didn’t realize we were into that. Should probably start calling you _daddy_ if you’re gonna act like my fucking fathe-“

“Wait, is something wrong?” Thomas interrupts, frowning, catching on far too quickly, really, Alex’s tone clearly pissier than he’d intended it to be.

“No,” he grits out, because he doesn’t want to acknowledge how much this _bullshit_ is bothering him. Alex is very good at generally not giving a fuck. Ninety-nine percent of the time, Alex gives zero fucks about pretty much everything. He hates that this, of all the pointless, stupid things to waste his energy on, is not one of those times, but he can’t seem to stop it grating his insides like sandpaper.

Thomas cocks his head and probably doesn’t believe him. He crowds up behind Alex, his frame looming over Alex’s shoulders and looks at Alex’s reflection, eyes serious and intent, lips flat lines.

“You’re not going out like that without me.” he says with calm finality, like Alex doesn’t have a choice, which is just ridiculous of him. Alex always has a choice. “Not looking like you’re just asking to be bent over, kitten. That’s final.”

“Not a fucking kitten,” Alex slings back and tries to wriggle out of his grip. Fails. “No one’s _bending me over_. I wouldn’t lay a single fucking finger on anyone else.”

“I don’t care. That’s not the point.” Thomas glares, holding his hips steady, and it’s a strong enough grip that he must feel it when Alex flinches at his words, because he frowns again. “Its not happening. They’d think it. That’s enough.”

Alex laughs humorlessly, just once, instantly outraged. “Oh, _is it_? That’s enough is it? What if I _want_ them to think it?” he says, and he can’t stop how snippy and hurt his voice sounds even to his own ears. “What if I _want_ to go out and let some asshole get all up in my space and _let him think he’s gonna get to fuck me_ , is that not okay? Is that not fucking _f_ _unny_ -”

He’s shaking with anger again by the time he cuts himself off with a sharp inhale and swallows down a few gulps of air, deliberately won’t meet Thomas’s eyes in the mirror. Thomas freezes behind him for a second, Alex can see his face in the mirror flashing dangerous at the mere suggestion, the thought, before his brow furrows in realization and he melts into Alex’s back, wraps around him like a human blanket. 

“Is _that_ what this is about?” Thomas says quietly into his ear. He tries to run soothing hands down Alex’s sides but Alex is rigid and tense and trembling with his temper and jerks away as best he can within the circle of his grip. “That little cunt? _Baby_ , come on-“

“Don’t you fucking _baby_ me-“ Alex squirms violently and scrabbles at the hands holding his hips, digs his fingers into Thomas’s wrists to try and pull them away. Fails again. He growls in frustration and when it comes out sounding a little whiny it only makes him only buck and wiggle harder. 

“Darlin,” Thomas says, leaning back a little like he thinks Alex might fling his head back to headbutt him. Alex might. “I’d not lay a finger on anyone else either, you know that.” 

He does. He _does._ Thomas loves him, it’s undoubtable. He thinks that’s what’s probably rubbing salt in the wound. Thomas spoils him with his love. Thomas touches him with hands that feel reverent and worshiping even now when they’re bruising tight; that’s Thomas’s love. He knows the risk Thomas puts himself at for him, the trust he implicitly places in Alex; that’s Thomas’s love. Thomas listens; has stopped trying to shower him with expensive gifts and brings him daisies and coffee instead of roses and diamonds, sends him a car to take him home from work when he sees that it’s raining and a million other things that are daily demonstrations that make him feel fucking _cherished_ most every hour of the day and so the sting of hurt running through him that Thomas hasn’t thought to care how he’d feel about him letting Charles fucking Lee scoot closer and closer just for kicks is painful in it’s comparison. The feeling that Thomas is happy for everyone to watch Charles’s pursuit, watch Thomas do _nothing_ about it? That _really_ fucking stings. 

“ _No shit_ ,” he screams at the ceiling, still struggling in Thomas’s grip, all his energy and anger not able to find any physical release, clawing it’s way out of him in sheer, ragged volume instead. “So why the fuck am I _the only asshole in this entire fucking city that knows that_?” 

He’s panting and shaking and struggling and he can feel Thomas pressed tight up against his back, hard line of him against his ass because he _likes_ this, likes when Alex loses it, gets hard watching him bite and claw and rage, calls it _beautiful_ and watches him burn with wonder-filled eyes. One day Alex thinks Thomas might rile him up and set him on someone he thinks deserves it, get off on watching Alex maul someone just for him. 

Alex thinks he’ll probably let him. 

Thomas must sense his mood shift - could be the way he’s pushing back into Thomas’s crotch, or the choked off whimpers, who can say, really - because he starts to kiss down Alex’s neck, nips teeth behind his ear, moans _my little wildcat_ and okay, _no_ , this is not how this is going down, he’s too pissed off to just give in here, and it might be Charles who is the target of Alex’s fury but it’s Thomas that thinks it’s _funny_ to let people go around thinking they’re gonna get a piece of him. 

He wrenches himself free of Thomas’s grip, gone just lax enough thinking Alex was on his way down, and spins in his arms, pushes him back. He’s well aware he’s not strong enough to actually _move_ Thomas if he didn’t want to be moved, so he knows that Thomas is playing along, eyes hot and intent, ghost of a smile as he takes a step back each time Alex advances. Alex doesn’t know if it pleases him or pisses him off even more, whether it’s indulging or patronizing. He feels like it’s patronizing.

“I asked a question,” he spits out and when Thomas’s legs hit the bed he crawls back onto it. “Why the fuck do I gotta deal with assholes thinking they’re gonna get to fuck you? You think I belong to you and you belong to everyone?” 

“No,” Thomas’s lips turn down and he licks them, frowns and Alex already knows it’s not true, but it’s the goddamn principle of the thing, alright? “Darlin-“

“‘Cause that’s what it looks to everyone _else_ , you know.” Alex snaps, completely ignoring him, pushes at Thomas’s chest until he backs up the bed, slaps Thomas’s hands away viciously when he moves to pull Alex up onto him. “Looks like _you_ mean so much that I’d rather kill than fuck anyone else but like _I_ mean so little-“

He’s not proud of how his voice breaks, or how Thomas’s frown somehow manages to soften and deepen at the same time as he reaches out. “ _Alex_ , co-“

“No.” Alex snarls, slapping his hands away again, pulling open drawers until he finds cuffs underneath expensive lube and three different cock rings. “You don’t get to fucking touch me right now.”

Thomas raises his hands and his eyebrows, placating, lets him slap the cuffs on around the bedpost, obviously content to lay back and watch Alex burn himself out. “Okay, okay, whatever you want.” 

Alex _wants_ to pull Thomas’s shirt wide open, strip the rest of him bare, stand off to one side where Thomas has to watch Alex strip himself and not touch. He _wants_ to crawl up on top of his boyfriend and bite bruises that scream _mine_ into every inch of the soft skin between his thighs. He _wants_ to wrap his mouth around Thomas’s dick and suck teasing and slow until he cries out for it, for more, for _Alex_ and no one else. He _wants_ to sit astride Thomas and slip lube-sticky fingers inside his own hole and open himself up while Thomas watches and groans and flexes and begs _please, kitten, you’re killin’ me here, fuck_ and when he’s done all of those things he _wants_ to lean in and glare down at Thomas, dig shaking, angry fingers into the meat of his pecs, and grind his ass back purposefully. 

“This is what he thinks he’s going to get from you, you know.” He punctuates it with another slow roll of his hips and both their breaths hitch as the head of Thomas’s cock catches on the stretched rim of his hole. Thomas groans, frustrated and ragged when Alex pulls forward instead of sinking back. 

“Wouldn’t,” Thomas growls and bucks his hips up under Alex. “You know I fuckin’ wouldn’t. It’s you. It’s _all you_. You think I’d let anyone else do this to me? Tie me down and tease me? You think that’s for anyone else?”

“No,” Alex says, because he doesn’t. He kisses Thomas, sticky-lipped and slow. He leans back, gets a hand around Thomas’s dick and lifts, sits back on it just a little, head of his cock balanced just inside Alex and Thomas bucks up as he starts to drop. 

“Fuck, yes, yes, _come on baby_ , that’s it. You know he’s not getting anything. You want me to hurt him? You know I will. Do anything for you.”

Alex shudders, sinks down slow and long until Thomas is all the way home, hard and hot and huge inside him. They both groan, and Alex starts up a slow rhythm, rolling his hips and working himself down onto Thomas’s cock like it exists purely for him to bounce on. Because it does. He tips his head back, fucks himself down harder and Thomas moans tightly. 

“God, look at you. So fucking sexy. Don’t even know why he wants me when there’s you looking like that. Come on, that’s it baby, fuck me-“

“Don’t fucking care if he wants you.” Alex growls, hard. He looks down, drinks it in, the pretty picture Thomas makes under him, head back, lips bitten and red, hair wild and free across the pillow, tendons in his neck and arms tense and biteable, sheen of sweat making his dark skin shiny and sticky as he tries to get enough purchase without his hands to fully thrust up into Alex. No, he doesn’t blame Charles for _wanting_. “He can _want_ you all he fucking likes. He can _look_ , and _want_ , and then he can go home to his miserable fucking empty bed and fuck his fist thinking of you for all I fucking care.” 

Thomas swears out a _fuck, Alex_ and Alex pulls up a second until he’s hovering above Thomas, tip of his dick barely breaching. Thomas actually whines and Alex’s head rushes dizzy with the sound of it. 

“But he doesn’t get to think it’s ever gonna actually fucking happen. I won’t have it.” Alex snaps. “I’ll fucking do it, you know. I swear to fucking god he gets one inch closer to you and I’ll rip his goddamn balls off. He doesn’t for a fucking second get to believe he’s going to get to touch what’s mine.”

Thomas pants out _you know I’m yours, Alex please, please_ , and Alex feels furiously, powerfully vindicated, because his Thomasput a guy's kneecaps out last week for owing him money and yet he's lying here _begging_ Alex to fuck him and Charles Lee can go _die in a fucking fire_ , and maybe Alex should just make that happen already. Seriously, _fuck_ that guy. _Jesus_ he's pissed.

He sinks back down with a sudden push and Thomas bows off the bed a little, legs trembling and cursing loudly as Alex rides him hard, breakneck speed, fury still coursing through him and this, _this_ is why they hardly ever use the restraints because he can’t get what he needs like this. He’s too angry and tense and even though there’s sparks behind his eyelids he needs it harder, rougher, and he can’t fucking do that on his own, it’s not _enough_ , he needs more, and just when his growls of frustration starts to bleed into horrible, desperate little sobs, Thomas saves him, because Thomas always knows what he needs. 

“I know, I know, let me up, please, please let me, come on Alex, _fucking let me up_ -“

The second Alex pitches forward and undoes the cuffs, there are firm, strong hands on his hips and Thomas flips them, presses Alex into the bed and slams back in without a moment to breathe. 

Alex thinks he probably yells aloud but it’s _so_ good, so exactly what he needs that he can’t bring himself to care, just arches his back and _yes, yes that’s it, just like that_ as Thomas pounds into him with all his force. 

“Just like that,” Thomas echoes, hoarse, face buried in Alex’s sweaty neck as he snaps his hips, pants into the skin over his pulse point. “Just like that, kitten. I’ve got you. Touch yourself, go on, wanna feel you-“ he makes a variation on the same, wounded little noise Alex does when he wraps his own hand around his dick and shudders, clenches down with the stimulation, tries to match Thomas’s relentless pace fucking him into the mattress. He reaches up and sinks his teeth into the soft space right underneath Thomas’s ear, bites nastily into the skin right where he can’t fucking hide it even if he wanted to, in case anyone else needs any fucking reminders. 

“ _Yes_ ,” Thomas hisses. “Just yours. Just you and me babygirl, you know that. Sorry, _sorry,_ I’ll castrate the little bastard myself if you want, if it will make you feel better, I’ll hold him down while _you_ do it, _god I love you_ -“

Alex comes whimpering into his neck, so atypical from his usual loud proclamations that his body’s reaction takes him a little by surprise. Thomas doesn’t stop, fucks him through it until he’s twitching, crying out his oversensitivity and scraping fingers up the line of Thomas’s spine so that he swears and loses his coordination, comes messy and hot deep inside Alex and _keeps going_ , until he’s mostly softening and the noise of him fucking through his own come sounds horrifically, wonderfully obscene in the quiet room and then he finally, _finally_ flops down and Alex can’t really _breathe_ but it’s okay. 

They lay there for a long time, until it’s way past the point of gross; Alex can feel the drip of semen down the line of his ass and shifts uncomfortably. Thomas grunts a protest but then groans and moves off of Alex until he’s lying next to him instead. 

Alex rolls over, bones achey and protesting already, runs fingers through his chest hair and strokes around a nipple until Thomas’s stomach twitches trying not to squirm. He presses his forehead to Thomas’s shoulder. Swallows.

“I don’t like it,” he says eventually, voice thick and low, speaking quietly into Thomas’s armpit, doesn’t try and hide the lingering irritation and hurt still coursing through him this time. “It’s not funny.”

Thomas threads his fingers through the hair at the nape of Alex’s neck where it’s come undone from his bun. Alex feels him press a kiss to the top of his head before he says;

“Okay. Then I’ll put a stop to it. I promise.” Simple. Just like that, because of course it is, and he knows he probably should have said this first, but some part of him sort of wanted Thomas to figure it out and fix it himself. 

Yeah, he’s probably more than a bit spoiled.

“Okay.” Alex mutters. “I’m still going out with Laf.” 

“Okay.” Thomas agrees easily, eyes closed and peaceful when Alex props himself up to see his face. “You’re still not wearing that.”

Alex looks over to his discarded clothes in a pile on the floor and for once doesn’t pick the fight. He’s still stinging with hurt and annoyance and he doesn’t want to be angry any more on top of that. This fight isn’t worth that. It’s one he’d win in the end, he knows. That’s enough for today. 

“Okay,” he says, relenting. “I love you.” 

Thomas smiles.

~~~

Alex feels better and worse by the time he’s five drinks deep and dizzy in the middle of a dance floor with Lafayette. 

Better because the second the front door had closed behind him - refusing a car and trekking to the subway instead, because he was still feeling petty and pissy - there was enough distance between he and Thomas that he started to equilibrate somewhat; Thomas is undoubtedly the epicentre of all of Alex’s extremes, his _oeil de tempête_ , the calm center around which all of Alex’s most intense emotions are tethered. Once he steps outside Thomas’s world, they quiet enough for him to successfully ration against maiming a nineteen year old. Just about. For now.

Worse because the second the front door had closed behind him there was enough distance between he and Thomas that the world dulled and dimmed, grey and miserable, because Thomas is undoubtedly the epicentre of Alex, period. 

He lets the bass thrum through him, drags Laf to the centre of the mound of sweaty, heaving bodies and stretches his arms up, tips his head back and blinks until he’s almost blinded by the flashing lights. Lafayette laughs at him and gives him half a pill, presses it onto his tongue with a single finger that tastes stale and salty and feels weird for the strangeness of someone else touching him. Alex doesn’t like it now, can count on one hand the people he feels even mildly comfortable having their hands on him and it isn’t lost on him that those people are only people _Thomas_ trusts. Thomas’s wants and desires bleeding subconsciously into him until he feels like they’re inextricably tangled, like he’s a sub-extension of Thomas; Thomas’s little hurricane. 

Alex doesn’t mind one bit. Alex would let Thomas crawl inside his skin and bleed into him in the physical as well if he could. Alex always flies too wildly, by the seat of his pants. Thomas works with enviable, methodical, calculating control that Alex naturally grounds himself on, that he _needs_ , really, though he’s heard Madison telling Thomas he’s becoming too reckless, feckless, _careless_ , so maybe Alex is bleeding into him a little, too. 

Laf winds up in a fight with a guy at the bar and Alex winds up with an aching, bruised jaw and blood under his nails, electric sparking in his veins as the pain blooms in his face, even as Laf and his buddy get dragged away. Alex slinks down the side of the dancefloor, presses himself up against the side of the speakers and closes his eyes, melts into it, feels the beat shake through his chest like it’s an AED trying to shock him into rhythm, his heart palpitating offbeat and out of time, disjointed and nauseating until it manages to sync up, beating alongside the powerful vibration rattling his bones and _Christ_ , he’s so fucking high. He wants a dictaphone, a notebook, wants to pen his thoughts on his irregular heartbeat as a metaphor for his place in the world, syncing up with Thomas's bassline and that bleeding, blurring line around him that defines who he is. He wants to know what the fuck it was that Laf gave him. He wants _Thomas_. 

He trips across the line from buzzed to comedown like hitting a brick wall, suddenly everything is overwhelming, too-loud and too-bright and too-sweaty. He ducks out into the fresh air, blinks away the spots behind his eyes, wonders if it’s been twenty minutes or two hours since he’d last seen Lafayette; there’s a text on his phone calling him an asshole and showering him in love from a half hour ago that he blearily replies to in kind. He’s just opening his Uber app when he spots a familiar black car idling down the street and he rolls his eyes even as climbs in the back, quiet sounds of late-night radio replacing beeping and hollering and he curls up on the bench seat, presses his hot cheek against the cool window and lets his vision swim. 

Monty leaves him to it, just mumbles a denying _no sir_ that Alex can’t discern the validity of when he asks if Thomas had made him sit out there all night, switches lanes seamlessly without question when Alex abruptly decides food might make his head less fuzzy, and pulls up and parks in the empty parking lot like Alex asks him to while he inhales his fries because he doesn’t want to get sick like he thinks he might if the car keeps moving. Monty will have to clean it up. Alex might be an asshole but he’s not a _monster_. 

He knows he’s stalling, even as he almost physically itches to crawl into bed with Thomas; Thomas’s bed is infinitely better, even without him in it, but he’s putting off having to go back to the house - he has no idea who’s around and he’s not sure he’s sober enough to keep his twitching hands from cutting a bitch if Lee is still there; Thomas said he would deal with it, so now Alex has to let him. Fuck if it doesn’t sting though. 

Monty must pick up on it, because he’s cautious when he says _home, then?_ without turning around when Alex has finished dunking the last fry into his milkshake and screwed up the bag. 

“ _Whose_ home?” Alex grumbles, and there’s a long pause before Monty finally says;

“I can take you back to your apartment if that’s where you want to go, Mister Hamilton, sir.”

“Alex.” Alex scowls at the back of his still-wobbly head. “I’m not your fucking boss.” 

There’s a rather pointed silence and he feels like an asshole. Monty’s a good kid, keeps his mouth shut, never huffs when Alex wants to stop for coffee. It’s not _his_ throat Alex sort of wants to rip out. He slurps his drink morosely. Or as morose as anyone can be while half-drunk and slurping a milkshake in an empty McDonald’s parking lot at four in the morning, in the back of an unmarked black car with their mafioso boyfriend’s favorite getaway driver, anyway. 

“I’d bet my life he’s told you to take me back to the townhouse.” Alex says eventually when he doesn’t respond, daring him to disagree. 

“Sure,” Monty admits and pauses again before continuing. “But I’d bet _my_ life that he’d cut me up for trying to take you anywhere you don’t wanna go, even if that’s to his place.”

He’s probably right, as well.

“So, you want to go to your apartment?” Monty raises his eyebrow in the rear view mirror as he starts the car. 

“No.” Alex mutters, petulant and drunk. “I want _Thomas_. I just don’t wanna deal with tripping over Charles fucking Lee’s thirsty ass camped outside his fucking bedroom door.”

Monty coughs out a laugh despite his attempts at professionalism and it immediately hits a nerve, Alex’s annoyance piquing all over again, snapping out;

“Yes it’s _absolutely fucking hilarious_ , I’m well aware. I swear to god if one more person says it’s _funny_ I’m going to set something on fucking fire.”

The car is quiet for a _long_ time as they move, until long after Alex’s angry breathing has subsided, head tipped back against the seat so the lights passing outside don’t make him feel dizzier than he is, until they’re more than halfway back to the house.

“Mr- Alex, sir,” and Alex’s lips twitch in spite of himself. “Boss sent Lee away right after you went out.” 

Alex breathes deep and just grunts in acknowledgment. 

“You know it’s only funny because they’re fucking idiots, right?” Monty spits out in a rush, like he’s not sure if he should really be speaking. Alex blinks blearily at the back of his head and says _huh?_ and he continues; “Like, everyone thinks it’s funny ‘cause ‘ain’t no one else dumb enough to think the boss is lookin’ at anyone but you.”

Alex mumbles _oh, right_ sort of stupidly and stares at the ceiling of the car until Monty pipes back up _we’re passing bleaker if you want me to stop so you can put his skull in anyway, sir, I won’t tell_. Alex thinks about it for a second, he’s not gonna pretend he doesn’t, imagines drawing blood, the high in proving a point, in staking a claim, the primal screaming in his gut being temporarily satisfied and then he thinks of Thomas kissing his head and saying he’d deal with it and says _no, I’m okay thanks_ , and miraculously finds that he actually is. 

When he crawls into bed, Thomas asks what took him so long and whether he made a pit stop on the way home in a voice that’s just the right side of conversational rather than overbearing and so Alex answers honestly; says _I made Monty sit at McDonalds_ instead of _I was hooking for blow_ or _took a swim in the Hudson_ or whatever other bullshit he might have said if he’d thought Thomas sounded too much like he was checking up on him. Thomas snorts in surprised laughter and says _wasn’t what I was expecting_ and Alex knows what he probably _was_ expecting, mumbles _you promised, I don’t doubt you._

Thomas pulls him in tight and kisses the back of his neck gratefully, even though Alex thinks it must be sweaty and smell like smoke and dingy-ass nightclub and be really fucking gross, and if that’s not a demonstration of love, he doesn’t know what is. 

~~~

The next evening Thomas comes to his apartment and gives him a bouquet and a pretty little box tied with a red ribbon that has two of John Lee’s teeth in it. Alex says his thank you on his knees. 

He still makes it a point to stop by the dirtiest butcher he can find, sends Charles a pair of bloody bull’s testicles and a condolences card that reads _do you know what they do to pretty boys in prison?_ because he can't have anyone thinking he doesn’t fight his own battles. 

He grins for two days straight the next time he sees Charles at the townhouse and the guy promptly turns around and walks into a wall in his effort to get the fuck away from Alex. 

Because _that_ shit is funny. 

**Author's Note:**

> Let’s play spot-the-moment-I-thought-it-would-end before I found myself ending the smut and banging another couple K of Alex getting high and bonding with his boyfriend's getaway driver.  
> Yeah I dunno what happened, honestly, except in the other pieces of this verse I have half-written Alex is his usual cocky AF self so I had fun here running with him feeling a little insecure and vulnerable for a while, cause he might be badass but that boy is a hot mess sometimes, gotta tell you.  
> ~  
> While I am truly obsessed with playing in this verse and have already got four more works on the go, we’ve now reached the end of the backlog of written stuff I originally had; a decrease in posting speed is imminent.  
> ~  
> [title from: Some Nights by G Herbo and Southside]


End file.
